Music

Ensembles

Real Country (Version 2) — 2015, 16'

String Quartet, Marimba, Hammond Organ (or Synthesizer) and Piano

Growing up in the rural American South, I’d occasionally hear the phrase “real country” as a way of identifying people – sometimes even my people, sometimes even me. It didn’t so much as describe a person’s profession or place of residence but rather something more qualitative – a characteristic walk or stride, a peculiar taste in food or conversation, and above all else, a richly accented voice thick with dialect and diphthong. It was something inside the body that just happened to make its way out somehow.

It’s that something within the voice that prompted me to write Real Country. Although I’ve titled each movement after a particular old-time country or gospel singer, I’m not really aiming to imitate any of them here – nor do I lay claim to anything resembling an “authentic” or “real” country style. First and foremost, this piece is a purely instrumental response, prompted by my listening over and over again, to a handful of special singers, all the while wondering and imagining – what sort of music do these voices invite? What idiosyncrasies and ornaments might I excavate from these old, strange and weird worlds? And how might I reimagine them in my own musical landscape?

There are, to be sure, a number of tunes here, too – some traditional ballads, some my own creation, others that fall in between. Some might recall the high-lonesome lament of the Appalachian murder ballad, others the ecstatic hollering of low-church gospel, and yet others the syrupy lilt of old-time country’s jilted lovers. Throughout it all, I think of these melodies as places to wander – pathways and byways mostly – each one traveled and populated by the peculiar, sputtering, plain and joyful voices of this other country – my country.

Real Country (Version 1) — 2014, 16'

Growing up in the rural American South, I’d occasionally hear the phrase “real country” as a way of identifying people – sometimes even my people, sometimes even me. It didn’t so much as describe a person’s profession or place of residence but rather something more qualitative – a characteristic walk or stride, a peculiar taste in food or conversation, and above all else, a richly accented voice thick with dialect and diphthong. It was something inside the body that just happened to make its way out somehow.

It’s that something within the voice that prompted me to write Real Country. Although I’ve titled each movement after a particular old-time country or gospel singer, I’m not really aiming to imitate any of them here – nor do I lay claim to anything resembling an “authentic” or “real” country style. First and foremost, this piece is a purely instrumental response, prompted by my listening over and over again, to a handful of special singers, all the while wondering and imagining – what sort of music do these voices invite? What idiosyncrasies and ornaments might I excavate from these old, strange and weird worlds? And how might I reimagine them in my own musical landscape?

There are, to be sure, a number of tunes here, too – some traditional ballads, some my own creation, others that fall in between. Some might recall the high-lonesome lament of the Appalachian murder ballad, others the ecstatic hollering of low-church gospel, and yet others the syrupy lilt of old-time country’s jilted lovers. Throughout it all, I think of these melodies as places to wander – pathways and byways mostly – each one traveled and populated by the peculiar, sputtering, plain and joyful voices of this other country – my country.

Book of the Lake — 2013, 18'

Texts adapted from the ancient Egyptian Book of the Faiyum (ca. 330 BCE)

"Throughout my engagement with the ancient Egyptian Book of the Faiyum, I was struck by the ways in which a text so old, strange and seemingly unfamiliar might nonetheless ignite the imagination of a twenty-first-century viewer and listener. My musical response is one in which contemporary sounds resonate alongside intimations of other, older worlds – and, I hope, one in which ancient voices might somehow speak to life in the present. Or to put it more concretely, I’ve envisioned a musical landscape in which glimpses of Coptic or Byzantine chant might occasionally give way to flashes of American popular music.

Drawing on both texts from these ancient scrolls and my imagination of ancient music more generally, my new piece features an unusual ensemble of modern and not-so-modern instruments, loosely inspired by ancient musical groups. Scored for flutes, singer, strings, handheld percussion and harpsichord, the piece is divided into five movements – each one a kind of musical map of an imaginary and shifting landscape."

Follow Her Voice — 2012, 17'

Like a path worn by many centuries of travel, the ancient poem phainetai moi has hosted many
wanderers. Over the past twenty-five hundred years, this short fragment by the Greek poet
Sappho (ca. 600 BCE) has captivated generations of other poets and commentators –
prompting a wild gamut of translations and adaptations. For some, the text signaled the
emergence of a lyrical strain in Western art that would extend to the modern era; for others,
it offered an intoxicating utterance of unfettered romantic freedom. For others still, it
provided an intriguing catalog of out-of-body experiences.

Fascinated by the ways in which this short text has had such a long life, I’ve based each of
the four songs in Follow Her Voice on a different translation or reworking of phainetai moi –
some far closer to the original text than others. “Wand’ring Fires,” the first song of the set,
uses a rhyming translation attributed to the seventeenth-century English spy, playwright and
poet Aphra Behn. Jumping forward more than three centuries, the subsequent movement
then features an original poem (“That Man,” 2010) by the American poet Maureen McLane,
written in response to Sappho’s fragment. In the third song, “Thin Flowing Flame,” I’ve set
Catullus’s Latin adaptation of the Greek original (ca. 50 BCE), in which the Roman poet
reworks the text as a hymn to his mistress. Finally, in “Starless Light,” the fourth song of the
set, I employ Lord Byron’s tumultuous rendition (ca. 1820) of Catullus’s poem – a kind of
translation of a translation of a translation.

First performance by Charmian Bedford and the Lontano Ensemble, Odaline de la Martinez, conducting.

Songs and Visions — 2009, 12'

From the beginning, I conceived of this piece as a metaphor of social interaction and imagined the players of the quintet as a small community. Each movement, in turn, reflects different relationships within this community. Two of these movements (I. and III.) are musical “visions,” in which large-scale relationships unfold and change over time. Meanwhile, the other two movements are short and tuneful “songs.”

As the title “Visions of Separate Voices” suggests, the first movement portrays a polarized drama. Here, I’ve divided the quintet into two distinct groups – the string quartet and the solo piano, each with their own stories to tell. Like two different communities who live in proximity, the string quartet and piano never really meet yet sometimes react to one another. The second movement, “Song of Grateful Wooing” is far more intimate; in this short and joyful song, I’ve imagined two sets of courting couples (violin-violin and viola-cello), each playfully accompanied by the piano.

In the third movement, “Vision of Shared Cities,” the full ensemble finally comes together as a larger collective. After an introduction that features interwoven melodies, a continuous common pulse underpins a musical journey that includes both lyrical conversation and an eruption of the blues. An epilogue, the fourth movement is a song of reconciliation, in which all of the instruments join together in a single, unison melody.

First performance of Version 1 at the Chamber Music Festival of Lexington, Alessio Bax, piano; Nathan Cole and Akiko Tarumoto, violins; Burchard Tang, viola; Priscilla Lee, cello. First performance of Version 2 by the Ossian Ensemble at the Royal Opera House (Linbury Theatre).

Ossian Remix — 2007, 8'

Two Sopranos, Piccolo, Clarinet, Violin, Cello and Piano

A reworking of “Kolmas Klage,” from Franz Schubert’s little-known set of songs based on poetry by the apocryphal Scottish bard Ossian (a.ka. James Macpherson).

First performance by Jane Manning and the Ossian Ensemble at St-Martin-in-the-Fields, London.

And again grows green — 2007, 16'

Solo Violin; Flute/Alto Flute, Clarinet, Cello, Piano, Tambourine

My initial inspiration and a host of subsequent ideas for this piece all stemmed from a single sentence in a short story by Willa Cather: “It never really died, then – the soul which can suffer so excruciatingly and so interminably; it withers to the outward eye only; like a strange moss which can lie on a dusty shelf half a century and yet, if placed in water, grows green again.” Both a narrative thread and a broad metaphor, the idea of this dry, lifeless object returning to life upon the presence of water served as an organizing principle for the piece, which is divided into three distinct but continuous movements:

In “Part 1: The outward eye,” the lone, nearly unaccompanied violin introduces short fragments of plaintive melodies – all in the lower reaches of the instrument – never quite managing to expand them into a longer, continuous tune. In “Part 2: Like a strange moss grown green,” the ensemble finally enters with a series of chorales, above which the solo violin emerges with increasing virtuosity, height, and abandon. In “Part 3: Past what happy islands,” the underlying elements of gospel, country, and blues that had tinged the previous movements come to the fore with a more unabashed, dance-like spirit. Ultimately, primal harmonies and constant, raw modulations erupt into an extroverted, sustained song.

Throughout the work, I’ve thought of the violin not so much as an instrumental soloist but as a human voice – an operatic heroine from which the spotlight never wanders. In this scenario, the ensemble forms a constantly changing landscape that impacts and informs the central figure but only towards the end becomes a set of supporting characters.

First performance by Caroline Balding and the Lontano Ensemble, Odaline de la Martinez, conducting.

no grave can hold me down — 2006, 10'

Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn

Tinged with elements of melancholic blues and more boisterous gospel, the piece begins with a bellowing tune in the lower reaches of the bass clarinet and bassoon. Throughout, high woodwinds accompany these bass voices – a trio of back-up singers who periodically chime in. Following an extroverted buildup for the whole ensemble, the second section then takes on a more introspective and fragmented character. After a sudden interruption from the oboe, the remaining third of the piece turns into a loud romp that falls somewhere between grandeur and raucousness.

First performance by the London Sinfonietta at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Christopher Austin, conducting.

On the surface, salsa in all its various permutations is an extrovert, infectious music. It seems to me a very sensual music of the moment – a special and savory night of dance and enjoyment. After the initial excitement, what layers and fragments, what voices and sentiments, might one remember? While writing this piece, I was fascinated with how such vibrant events are fragmented, distilled, relived, transformed and forgotten in one's memory. With this notion as a kind of springboard, the piece consists of three short "variations" each representing a later point in time, with the first a still-vivid but already fragmented recollection of the recent past...

First performance by the Lontano Ensemble at the South Bank Centre, Odaline de la Martinez, conducting.

As the title suggests, I’ve conceived of this piece as a set of two different types of music – short, tuneful songs and musical “visions” that are larger in scope and wider in musical reference.

In the first movement, “Common Visions,” I think of the orchestra as a community of distinct individuals in conversation with one another. It begins with the woodwinds interwoven around a shared melody, from which the entire piece then unfolds. Soon afterwards, a continuous common pulse underpins a musical journey that includes both lyrical dialogue and a raw eruption of the blues.

The second and third movements are short, more intimate songs. In the second movement, “Song of Grateful Wooing,” I’ve imagined sets of courting couples (trumpet-clarinet and bassoon-tuba, for example), each playfully accompanied by a combination of mallet percussion, piano and pizzicato strings. The third, “Song in Unison,” is a song of reconciliation, in which all join together in a single, unison melody that is introduced by two piccolos in their lowest register.

First performance by the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra, Scott Terrell, conducting.

Cello Concerto — 2011, 27’

I imagine this piece as a kind of instrumental opera, in which the solo cello assumes the lead role amidst a cast of supporting characters – i.e. the eight other players. In the first movement, “Prologue,” various combinations of the ensemble serve as a Greek Chorus that precedes the main drama of the work. At the piece’s beginning, the solo cellist acts as an accompanist to this chorus. Gradually, as the movement unfolds, the cello emerges as the soloist, culminating in a cadenza or “soliloquy” at the end of the first movement. In the episodic second movement, “Act One,” I envision a series of short, unfolding arias compacted into a span of six minutes – culminating in a melodic passage full of nostalgic associations. The third and shortest movement, “Dances and Interludes” is a light and casual jaunt featuring pizzicato cello, double bass, and bassoon. I think of it as a dramatic foil between the weightier second and fourth movements.

The fourth movement, “Act Two,” is the work’s core. Here, an increasingly fraught and virtuosic cello solo is underpinned by call-and-response gestures between the accompanying strings and woodwinds. Fast and unrelenting, the movement builds through a series of climaxes, with an enflamed cadenza halfway through the movement. Before the final and most violent crescendo, a lone bassoon recalls a frail and fleeting fragment of Act One’s nostalgic “aria.” In the fifth and last movement, “Epilogue and Processional,” the cello takes on a meditative and lyrical character – with a slow, simple ostinato rolling forward in the piano and bass. I imagine this movement as both a love scene and ritualistic procession.

Written for and recorded by Lynn Harrell, solo cello, with the Angeli Ensemble.

Yet they abide — 2005, rev. 2008, 12’

For a number of years now, I’ve found creative inspiration in the rich tapestry of American musical traditions – sometimes discovering a vibrant newness in something very old. In particular, the massed congregational singings and early gospel music once prevalent in the American South have often captivated my musical sensibilities. Although simply mimicking this music seems problematic, exploring the expressive potential of group religious singing strikes me as particularly exciting on the large canvas of an orchestra.

A complicated legacy, these singings were a participatory music that fostered deep ties of community but also had the capacity to erupt into extreme and jarring emotionalism. After recollecting a few experiences from my childhood in the rural South and then studying various recordings of both white and black singing traditions, I was drawn to the way that an individual singer relates to the rest of the group - as everyone more-or-less sings the same thing but with constant, personal inflections. Here, I sense a raw, emotional impulse that can be individual and communal - and at times both good and evil.

In the first half of the piece, I imagine a sequence of different choruses, each of which appears and vanishes like a memory of something past. For these choruses, I’ve divided the orchestra into a series of distinct instrumental “congregations.” Each of these congregations has one or two instrumental “voices” that begin to stick out, almost uncontrollably, from the rest of the group. Ultimately, these various groups merge into an explosive passage for the entire orchestra that becomes increasingly impassioned and inflamed as the individual voices from the first sections are now consumed by a larger fervor. Afterwards, the piece closes introspectively with a lyrical epilogue.

First performance by the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, Alan Yamamoto, conducting; expanded version first played by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin, conducting.

And again grows green — 2006, 17’

My initial inspiration and a host of subsequent ideas for this piece all stemmed from a single sentence in a short story by Willa Cather: “It never really died, then – the soul which can suffer so excruciatingly and so interminably; it withers to the outward eye only; like a strange moss which can lie on a dusty shelf half a century and yet, if placed in water, grows green again.” Both a narrative thread and a broad metaphor, the idea of this dry, lifeless object returning to life upon the presence of water served as an organizing principle for the piece, which is divided into three distinct but continuous movements:

In “Part 1: The outward eye,” the lone, nearly unaccompanied violin introduces short fragments of plaintive melodies – all in the lower reaches of the instrument – never quite managing to expand them into a longer, continuous tune. In “Part 2: Like a strange moss grown green,” the ensemble finally enters with a series of chorales, above which the solo violin emerges with increasing virtuosity, height, and abandon. In “Part 3: Past what happy islands,” the underlying elements of gospel, country, and blues that had tinged the previous movements come to the fore with a more unabashed, dance-like spirit. Ultimately, primal harmonies and constant, raw modulations erupt into an extroverted, sustained song.

Throughout the work, I’ve thought of the violin not so much as an instrumental soloist but as a human voice – an operatic heroine from which the spotlight never wanders. In this scenario, the ensemble forms a constantly changing landscape that impacts and informs the central figure but only towards the end becomes a set of supporting characters.

First performance by Caroline Balding and the Lontano Ensemble, Odaline de la Martinez, conducting.

Kith and Kin — 2015, 60'

If I Were a Voice — 2004, 80'

Set in the explosive and burgeoning world of America in the 1840s, If I Were a Voice follows the stranger-than-fiction lives of the Hutchinsons, a once well-known family of singers and radical social activists committed to the emancipation of slavery and women’s suffrage. With a libretto fashioned from memoirs, newspaper clippings, diaries, and fragments of private poetry, this politically inflected opera centers on a quartet made up of three brothers and a sister, who together became one of the first touring troupes of “popular” singers in America.
The opera itself is divided into four parts and an epilogue, with each of the four parts structured by the chorus-verse form so ubiquitous to American popular song. These sections each begin with a “chorus” – a public scene sampling some of the group’s many performances and public antics. In subsequent sections, these choruses are followed by longer “verses” that follow the family’s private melodramas and eventual dissolution, often as filtered trough the public eye.

Film and Dance

The Breath Catalogue — 2015, 45'

An Encounter with Simone Weil — 2011, 92'

Strings, Voices, Clarinet, Piano, Electronics

The film tells the story of French philosopher, activist, and mystic, Simone Weil (1909-1943) – a woman Albert Camus described as "the only great spirit of our time." On her quest to understand Simone Weil, filmmaker Julia Haslett confronts profound questions of moral responsibility both within her own family and the larger world. From the battlefields of the Spanish Civil War to anti-war protests in Washington DC, from intimate exchanges between the filmmaker and her older brother who struggles with depression to captivating interviews with people who knew Simone Weil, the film takes us on an unforgettable journey into the heart of what it means to be a compassionate human being.

World Festival Premiere at International Documentary Festival Amsterdam. Theatrical Opening at New York City’s Quad Cinema. Now available on DVD and for download. LineStreet Productions.

Chorus

King David's Songbook — 2008, 18'

1. Preface and Responsory
2. Hymn: Praise for the Flight of a Dove
3. Liebeslied: The end of knowledge

Throughout work on King David’s Songbook, I was fascinated and inspired by the cultural weight attached to psalm singing across the millennia . My decision to set texts from the 1640 Bay Psalm Book – the first booked printed in British North America – certainly raised one particular set of historical associations. Yet, ultimately, my fundamental attraction to these translations stemmed from the spare, unpolished, and sometimes downright clunky language in this oddly rhyming verse. Each seemingly simple and direct word or syllable opened up a new but strangely old world that invited musical exploration.

Beginning with the notion that the psalms have engaged both personal and communal forms of expression, I’ve synthesized specific elements of psalm traditions from various cultures into the musical fabric of the work. Not necessarily apparent as distinct references, these allusions range from medieval Ethiopian psalmody to the gospel music and shaped-note singing of 19th- and 20th century America. Meanwhile, in addition to enjoying the lovely sounds of the harp, marimba and organ, I also sense a symbolic association in these three instruments – again, something very old embodied in the new. A harp and marimba might suggest the ancient lyre and psaltery that might have accompanied a more intimate type of psalm singing. Likewise, the organ recalls the centuries-old practice of singing psalms with a simple organ accompaniment that often shadowed the voices.

I conceive of the piece not as a self-standing setting of one psalm text but rather as a small collection of individual songs in which fragments of thematically related psalms form the lyrics. In the first movement, “Preface and Responsory,” I explore the role of the individual person amidst a larger collective, as proposed in the Bay Psalm Book’s preface, “By whom are they to be sung? By one man alone… or by the whole together?” The short second movement consists of two sections: the earthbound first part comprised of quickly incanted, despondent complaints and the more joyful second section which takes flight on the famous phrase “wings of a dove.” Finally, as the title describes, I imagine the third movement as a love-song, culminating with a meditation on the phrase “darkness and light.”

First performance by the Back Bay Chorale (Boston), Scott Allen Jarrett, conducting.

conversation with statue — 2006, 7'

SSAATTBB chorus unaccompanied

Based on an ancient Greek text by the poet Callimachus, (ca. 305-240 BCE) translated by M.F. Nichols, this short and densely voiced work dramatizes an imaginary dialogue between a statue of the god Apollo and a mortal observer. Rather than use a pair of individual voices for this text, I’ve chosen to rework Callimachus’ fanciful conversation on the much larger canvas of a virtuosic, eight-part chorus.

First performance by the BBC Singers.

Voice

Atlantic Fire — 2012, 12'

Voice, two saxophones, piano, and electronics

A musical and historical commentary on American citizenship, this composition draws upon oratory texts from Cotton Mather’s 1693 collection Wonders of the Invisible World as well as an 1891 wax-cylinder recording of what is thought to be the voice of Walt Whitman reading from the poem “America.” Added to the mix are two wailing saxophones – a kind of American vernacular version of the proverbial trumpets of Jericho.

The sung text is excerpted and expanded from an oration by Cotton Mather published in the The Wonders of the Invisible World (1693): “An Orator call’d the Town together, crying out, Concurrite Cives, Dilapla sunt vestra Mania! that is, Come together, Neighbours, your Town-Walls are fallen down! But such is the Descent of the Devil at this day upon ourselves, that I may truly tell you, The Walls of the Whole World are broken down!”

First performance by Jacqueline Horner Kwiatek, the Effiny Duo and Daniel Thomas Davis.

Follow Her Voice — 2012, 17'

Like a path worn by many centuries of travel, the ancient poem phainetai moi has hosted many
wanderers. Over the past twenty-five hundred years, this short fragment by the Greek poet
Sappho (ca. 600 BCE) has captivated generations of other poets and commentators –
prompting a wild gamut of translations and adaptations. For some, the text signaled the
emergence of a lyrical strain in Western art that would extend to the modern era; for others,
it offered an intoxicating utterance of unfettered romantic freedom. For others still, it
provided an intriguing catalog of out-of-body experiences.

Fascinated by the ways in which this short text has had such a long life, I’ve based each of
the four songs in Follow Her Voice on a different translation or reworking of phainetai moi –
some far closer to the original text than others. “Wand’ring Fires,” the first song of the set,
uses a rhyming translation attributed to the seventeenth-century English spy, playwright and
poet Aphra Behn. Jumping forward more than three centuries, the subsequent movement
then features an original poem (“That Man,” 2010) by the American poet Maureen McLane,
written in response to Sappho’s fragment. In the third song, “Thin Flowing Flame,” I’ve set
Catullus’s Latin adaptation of the Greek original (ca. 50 BCE), in which the Roman poet
reworks the text as a hymn to his mistress. Finally, in “Starless Light,” the fourth song of the
set, I employ Lord Byron’s tumultuous rendition (ca. 1820) of Catullus’s poem – a kind of
translation of a translation of a translation.

First performance by Charmian Bedford and the Lontano Ensemble, Odaline de la Martinez, conducting.

Thin Fire Racing — 2010, 5'

The first of a series of songs based on Sappho’s famous Fragment 31, phainetai moi.

First performance by Jacqueline Horner Kwiatek and Daniel Thomas Davis.

Inta's Songs — 2006, 10'

Mezzo-soprano, Viola (or Clarinet) and Piano

Quiet, introspective and fragile, these two songs are based on poems by the Latvian-American poet and scholar Inta Miske Ezergailis (1932-2005).

First performance by Andra Darzins, Laila Salins and Daniel Thomas Davis at the Latvia International Festival

Four Songs from a Big Spring — 2005, 14'

Version 1: Voice and Two Guitars
Version 2: Voice and Piano

A collection of short love songs featuring contemporary American poetry.

First performance by Sarah Gabriel and Antonis Hatzinikolaou at the Royal Academy of Music London.

Bring: bring up — 2003, 5'

Voice and piano

An homage to a writer whose work has long influenced my own – James Agee.

First performance by Christine Kavanagh and Daniel Thomas Davis.

Duos, Trios and Solos

the light between — 2015, 4'

Solo Cello

The Blue of Distance — 2012, 14'

Two Percussionists: Marimba, Vibraphone, Almglocken, and Tambourines

This piece takes its title from several short essays by Rebecca Solnit – a highly unorthodox writer whose genre-defying work has continued to fuel my imagination over the past few years. In particular, I’ve found myself pondering her idea of the “blue of distance” – that impossibly blue color of the horizon as seen from afar. Not just any shade of blue, this is that special color that is only ever perceived from afar, vanishing as you approach. More than just a color, it signifies that particular sense of longing for something which “can never be possessed.”

When writing the first movement of this piece, I kept asking myself if I might be able to translate this evanescent blue of distance into a musical experience. But rather than try to mimic an explicitly visual image in sound, I turned Solnit’s idea into a question: what kind of music might simply vanish the longer you hear it? On the most basic level, this first movement is just that – a music that gradually fades away and dissipates over the course of a few minutes. Beginning with a unison melody played on all the instruments, it splinters in different directions as it slowly dies away.

Underpinned by a walking-speed pulse in the marimba, the second movement both alludes to the physical act of walking and to those rambling strings of thought that can accompany a good, meandering stroll. Here, I imagine a saunter through the musical imagination, in which the mind and ear wander from one seemingly unrelated idea to another. And like Solnit’s blue of distance, these musical musings also faze in and out of focus. The cumulative effect is meant as an invitation to the listener to enter into that same open-ended state of wonder that a long walk can offer. One foot always placed in front of the other as the mind moves on.

First performance by the Meehan-Perkins Duo.

Diary of the Scattering — 2009, 16'

Violin, Cello and Piano

This piano trio is structured as a set of variations based on archival recordings of ancient Armenian liturgical and secular music by the composer, scholar and priest Komitas (1869-1935). In writing this trio, I’ve imagined each of the variations as different, individual experiences in the formation of a diaspora – departing, scattering, haunting, forgetting, and assimilating: